


Stomach-Snakes

by skywalkersamidala



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Denial of Feelings, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Injury, Mild Blood, One Shot, Teeny bit of angst, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26586151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skywalkersamidala/pseuds/skywalkersamidala
Summary: The Red Spear keeps using the most minor injuries as excuses to see Pym. Though she’d rather die than admit she’s experiencing feelings.
Relationships: Pym/Red Spear | Guinevere (Cursed)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	Stomach-Snakes

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first venture into Cursed fic, and I gotta tell you now that I’m super fresh out of my very first watch and I did space out through a lot of it, so apologies if the worldbuilding or dialogue style is way off or the characters terribly OOC haha the Red Spear's and Pym’s subplots are probably the ones I paid closest attention to tho (and the Weeping Monk’s, but he’s not relevant here) so hopefully I did okay with writing these two!
> 
> This is set shortly after the scene of Pym stitching the Red Spear’s shoulder and then kind of goes off on its own timeline that probably isn’t canon-compliant idk, also in this fic Dof is Pym’s BFF rather than a love interest (and he’s very alive and well and will continue to remain so for a long time, thanks!)
> 
> Idk anything about Viking views on homosexuality, but I decided to make it a non-issue because a) I just wanted it to be a short n sweet oneshot, b) these are fantasy Vikings anyway, and c) the Red Spear’s crew in particular seems like they’d be chill about it/she would hurl anyone who had a problem with it overboard lmao
> 
> Anyway I hope you like this!!

Night had fallen, and spirits were high on the ship after their first successful raid on a Paladin camp. The Red Spear slammed Isma’s arm down on the table, earning a round of cheers from the rest of the crew. “All right, who’s next?” she said as Isma good-naturedly admitted defeat and got up.

“I’ll try you, Captain,” Dof said, sliding into the seat Isma had just vacated.

The Red Spear scoffed. “I’ll break your arm, boy,” she said. “Let’s do left arms for your sake, since mine being injured will level the playing field.”

Dof gave her an easy grin and put his left elbow on the table, and the Red Spear followed suit and gripped his hand. “Wait! That’s not a good idea, Captain, your shoulder’s still healing,” she heard that useless Fey healer whining behind her. “You’ll pop your stitches out.”

“Shut it, Healer,” the Red Spear said, and at one of the crewmen’s count, she started pushing at Dof’s arm with all her might, trying to pin it to the table.

One minute later: “Healer! My bloody stitches have popped!”

Dof slammed her arm down. “I win!” he said triumphantly.

“You damn well do not!” the Red Spear said, yanking her hand out of his grasp. “We’ll have a rematch once that shit healer’s stitched me up properly the way she was supposed to the first time!”

The healer just sighed and ushered her belowdecks.

The Red Spear huffed impatiently as the healer re-stitched her shoulder, wanting to return to the revelry she could still hear above them. “You really ought to be more careful,” the healer said. “Don’t overexert this shoulder until it’s fully healed.”

“Since when are you the one who gives orders around here?” the Red Spear snapped.

“Sorry, Captain,” the healer stammered. “I-I’m only trying to look out for your health.”

“Well, don’t. I don’t need you fussing over me.”

The Red Spear hoped that would be the end of the conversation, but of course the girl could never stay silent for long. “I’m glad the raid today was a success,” she said, making the Red Spear sigh in annoyance. “I bet those Paladin bastards didn’t know what hit them.”

Despite her irritation, the Red Spear couldn’t help but smirk as she remembered the cowardly monks squealing for mercy in the face of her spear. “And they had a shitload of gold, too,” she said. “I suppose I should be thankful that your quest for vengeance coincided with my monetary interests.” The needle slipped and pricked a bit of uninjured skin next to the wound. “Damn you!”

“Sorry, sorry!” the healer said, giving her shoulder an awkward apologetic pat. For some reason the Red Spear shivered a little at the gentle, almost affectionate touch.

“I was just surprised,” the healer continued. “At what you said. About my, uh, quest for vengeance? I don’t know what you mean, I haven’t got any quest for vengeance, I was just trying to help you out when I suggested—”

“Do you think me a fool?” the Red Spear cut her off. “You’re Fey. The Paladins are killing the Fey. You want them dead, and you also want to stay here and find your damned friend. That’s why you suggested that we raid the Paladins. Not out of a desire to help me.”

The healer tied off the stitches. The Red Spear thought she’d deny it, but instead she said, “I’m sorry for deceiving you.”

The Red Spear snorted. “Deceiving me? Don’t flatter yourself,” she said. “I knew exactly what you were after but, like I said, it coincided with my interests, so why should I give a damn about your motives for suggesting it?”

“Oh,” the healer said.

The Red Spear got to her feet and inspected the new stitches. “Besides, seeking vengeance against those who’ve wronged you is admirable.” She wasn’t sure why she was complimenting the healer; the idiot didn’t need any more encouragement. So to humble her again, she added, “But you’re still shit with a needle.”

She glanced back up in time to see the healer smiling at her, a little more widely than she had earlier that day. She still looked like a frightened deer, though. The Red Spear couldn’t stop looking at her big brown eyes, the freckles scattered across her face, the way her long orange hair gleamed in the candlelight…

With a harrumph and a scowl, the Red Spear went back up to rejoin the crew’s festivities, wondering why her stomach felt like it had been filled with squirming snakes.

* * *

“Oh dear,” Pym said as the Red Spear, hollering in pain, came belowdecks leaning heavily on Isma. There was an arrow sticking out of her thigh, fresh blood still oozing out of the wound.

“Bloody Paladins!” the Red Spear yelled. “I’ll gut every last one of them, sniveling little shits—”

“Gutting will have to wait until later, Captain,” Pym said as Isma helped her clamber onto the table. “Now, brace yourself.”

Pym gripped the end of the arrow, counted to three, and yanked it out in one clean pull that caused the Red Spear to howl even more loudly and angrily, now directing her wrath at Pym and hurling all sorts of Norse curses at her that Pym serenely ignored because she had no idea what they meant. She was relieved; after only a few weeks on the ship, she already knew that the more the Red Spear fussed and shouted, the less serious the injury was.

“I’ll take it from here,” Pym told Isma, and she nodded and went abovedecks.

Pym gathered up some bandages and herbs and returned to the table to inspect the wound, but found that she couldn’t see it very well. “Those pants will have to come off,” she said.

The Red Spear glared at her, and was it Pym’s imagination or did her face look a little pink? “You are _not_ taking off my pants!”

“Well, I can’t treat your wound otherwise,” Pym said reasonably.

“I’d rather bleed out!”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, Captain, there’s no need to be embarrassed.”

The Red Spear’s scowl deepened. “Embarrassed?! As if I have anything to be embarrassed about!” she said. “Take the bloody pants off, see if I care!”

“All right,” said Pym, who was well used to her captain’s mood swings by now. She unlaced her pants, which was something she’d done to plenty of patients in the past few weeks so she had no idea why she was suddenly embarrassed about it, then covered her lap in a spare cloth for modesty before pulling the pants all the way off and tossing them over her shoulder.

“All right,” Pym said again, trying not to look at the Red Spear’s _extremely_ muscular legs with anything other than a healer’s eye. “You’re in luck, it doesn’t look too deep.” She wished it was a little lower down on her thigh, though.

Fortunately Pym managed to keep her professional focus as she set about stitching the wound, putting a poultice on it, and bandaging it. As she did so, she rambled on about nothing in particular; it helped her concentrate.

And for once, the Red Spear didn’t snap at her for talking too much. On the contrary, she was uncharacteristically quiet throughout the whole thing. Her breathing had quickened a little—probably because she was in pain—and there were goosepimples on her thigh—no doubt because it was awfully cold down here to be pants-less.

“There,” Pym said when she was done, quickly dropping her hands and taking a step back. “It should heal fully within a week or two as long as you don’t do anything to aggravate it.”

The Red Spear just looked at her. Pym looked back, hypnotized by her dark, intense eyes. “Healer,” the Red Spear said finally.

“Yes?”

“Are you going to give me my pants back or am I going to have to walk around half-naked for the rest of the day?”

“Oh, right,” Pym mumbled, blushing, and she quickly gathered her pants up off the floor and tossed them to her, then hurried abovedecks to give her privacy to get dressed.

Very strange. Pym had been a healer for three entire weeks and nudity was now a very common sight for her, so why was she suddenly so flustered? It wasn’t as if she was _attracted_ to the Red Spear. The woman was terrifying.

…In kind of an attractive way, Pym had to admit. Oh, hell.

Just what she needed right now. After watching her entire village massacred, fleeing for her life, almost getting killed by Vikings, and trying to search for her missing best friend, to top it all off, Pym now had a ridiculous crush on the captain of her ship who would snap her in half with her bare hands if she ever realized how she felt.

She heaved a sigh. “What’s wrong, Minnow?” Dof said, approaching her. “Your last patient give you a hard time? You know her bark’s worse than her bite. When it comes to her crew, anyway, not for her enemies. For them her bite’s definitely worse.”

Pym just shrugged. “Hey, I was wondering,” she said. “Does she have…I don’t know, a lover or anything? Friends? Family?”

She tried to sound casual, but to her embarrassment, Dof got a shit-eating grin on his face that told her he knew exactly why she was asking. “Why? Does someone have a little crush?” he teased.

“No!” Pym exclaimed, mortified. “I was just curious! I’m a gossip, me, I love knowing everything about everybody’s personal business—”

“Right,” Dof said, still smirking. “Well, the captain hasn’t got any kind of personal life that I know of. Too busy with raiding, battles, her quest for vengeance, those sorts of things.”

“Yes…” Pym said thoughtfully. She had no desire to get any closer to a battlefield than she had been the day her village was attacked, but she _would_ love to see the Red Spear in action someday. She imagined it was a beautiful sight to behold. Beautiful but deadly.

“I can see this conversation’s not going anywhere,” Dof was saying when she tuned back in. “I’ll leave you to your daydreams.”

“Dof!” Pym spluttered indignantly as he walked away, but he just laughed.

* * *

In the weeks that followed, the Red Spear found herself coming to enjoy the time she spent belowdecks with the healer. She couldn’t say why—the girl was an infuriating chatterbox and barely half decent at her job, but there was something about her company that felt so refreshing. So different from the battle-hardened raider’s life she was used to.

The healer was…delicate. Gentle hands, lithe little body, a smile like sunshine. Gods, what a smile she had. It was more and more frequent these days as she settled into life on the ship and began losing the frightened-deer-like quality of her appearance. The Red Spear liked watching her bantering with the crew as if she belonged, even as part of her twinged with an inexplicable jealousy at seeing how comfortable she was with Dof and the others, compared to how nervous she still was around her.

It made no sense. The Red Spear _wanted_ people to fear her. She’d always done her best to ensure it. But it was strangely dissatisfying to see the healer shy away from her gaze and start stuttering when she was near.

When it was just the two of them at the healing table, though, the healer relaxed a little, as long as the Red Spear didn’t snap at her too much. Which she was no longer doing; the healer’s mindless chatter didn’t feel so annoying anymore. Actually, the Red Spear welcomed it, as it distracted her from the pain of whatever wound the healer was fixing.

Well, the few times that it was actually a serious injury, anyway. “Healer, I’m bleeding,” the Red Spear announced, thundering down the stairs and plopping down expectantly on a stool. “I was out scouting the nearest Paladin camp but they spotted me, and one of their arrows clipped me as I was getting away.”

(Actually, she’d been hunting in the forest and had accidentally walked into a sharp branch, causing her to swear so loudly she’d scared away her prey.)

“Where? What, that little cut?” the healer said when the Red Spear pointed to a thin slice on her cheek. “It’s so shallow, it’s already stopped bleeding. You’ll be fine.”

The Red Spear leveled her best cold stare at her. “I’d hate to think what the crew would do if their captain died because of your negligence,” she said. “I need one of your shit poultices, now.”

The healer humored her in mixing some herbs together and spreading the resulting paste on the cut, and the Red Spear heard all about an archery-related childhood misadventure she’d had with her friend Nimue, the one she was searching for. Her light touch on the Red Spear’s cheek made those damned stomach-snakes return, much to her irritation.

* * *

A few days later: “Healer, my head is _pounding_. I could be dying.”

“I’m sure it’s just from all the ale last night,” the healer said. “But I know just the herbs to help.”

She mixed up some foul concoction that the Red Spear had to choke down, but it was worth it because she got to hear the healer’s tale about the first time she and Nimue had gotten drunk. (And the herb concoction did indeed end up easing her headache. Probably one of the healer’s few remedies that she’d already known prior to blustering her way into employment on the ship.)

* * *

The following week, Dof was helping the Red Spear hobble back to the ship after a raid that had left her with a nasty gash on her calf. “I really thought you saw that knife coming, Captain,” he said. “Your reflexes have been slower these past weeks.”

The Red Spear glowered at him. “Say that again and I’ll have you thrown overboard.”

But Dof continued, unfazed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were doing it on purpose so that Minnow would fix you up afterwards,” he said. “You’ve been spending much more time at the healer’s table lately than you ever did when Thrain was the one manning it.”

The Red Spear’s mortification at how obvious she’d been only made her curse Dof all the more fiercely the entire way back to the ship.

“Back again, Captain?” the healer said when Dof had deposited her belowdecks and left them to it, throwing the Red Spear a wink on his way out that made her gnash her teeth. “You spend more time down here than anyone.”

“Well, what good is a cowardly captain who lets their crew take all the hits for them?” the Red Spear said defensively. Why was she being defensive against this little Fey? She didn’t have to explain herself. “Besides, the more practice you get, the better for all of us. I’m sacrificing myself by being the one you test all your useless remedies on.”

The healer smiled sheepishly and got to work. The Red Spear startled herself by engaging her in conversation rather than letting the healer ramble on first. “Why does Dof call you Minnow?” she said. “I hope that’s not your name.”

“No more than ‘the Red Spear’ is _your_ name,” the healer replied. “Why are you called that?”

“Because I am a weapon of vengeance stained red with the blood of my enemies.”

“Right, obviously. Very normal.”

“Well? Minnow?” the Red Spear pressed.

“Not as exciting an origin as your nickname, I’m afraid,” the healer said. “When Dof and I first met, he overheard someone call me Minnow—I hate the name, actually, though it’s not so bad when Dof uses it—you see, it was originally the boy I was supposed to marry, the fishmonger’s son, and I _hated_ him, I was dreading the day of our marriage—”

She was promised? To some fishmonger’s idiot son? The Red Spear’s nostrils flared, her hand instinctively flying to the handle of her dagger. “Who is he? Where can he be found?” she demanded. “I will slay him for you.”

The healer looked surprised for a second, but then she laughed. This was the first time the Red Spear had heard her laugh like that, carefree and genuinely amused rather than a nervous chuckle. It was a beautiful sound.

“There’s no need for that, he’s harmless and very far away by now,” the healer said. “But I’m touched that you’d be willing to slay someone for me, Captain.”

The Red Spear scowled at her so ferociously that she quickly shut her mouth and got back to work. But her mouth was back open again moments later. “Pym is my real name,” she said.

“Pym,” the Red Spear said, testing the name out. Small but strong. It suited her. “A ridiculous name.”

“I don’t know, I’m partial to it myself,” the healer—Pym replied. “But some of the other children in my village did tease me about it sometimes…that reminds me of this one afternoon with Nimue, we were—”

“Nimue, that friend of yours,” the Red Spear interrupted. Pym talked about her often, always very lovingly. “Is she your lover?” The thought was bitter, though she didn’t know why.

Pym let out another laugh, this one startled. “No, why?”

“She’s the only thing you ever bloody talk about,” the Red Spear said, feeling oddly relieved.

“Because she’s my friend,” Pym said. “And she’s the only one from my village it doesn’t pain me to talk about because she’s the only one who’s still alive. Or at least, I _hope_ she’s still alive…”

Her tone was heavy, and the Red Spear felt her heart twang with sympathy. She looked down at Pym bandaging her calf, her expression downcast. It wasn’t right. Pym was the sort of person who naturally radiated light and good cheer, the Red Spear hated seeing her like this.

So she spoke, surprising even herself with the gentleness of her tone. “I…I understand how it feels to lose one’s home,” she said. “Of course exile is different than a massacre, but…the sense of loneliness and displacement is, perhaps, similar. That’s what this ship and crew is for. A home for those who lost theirs.”

The Red Spear bit her lip as soon as she’d said it; this was the most she’d revealed of her heart to anyone since…she didn’t even know how long. But when Pym looked up to meet her eyes, a shy and unbelievably precious smile spreading across her face, the Red Spear couldn’t bring herself to regret her words.

“Thank you,” Pym said simply.

The Red Spear gave her a stiff but sincere nod. “At our next raid, all the Paladins I slay will be in your name,” she declared. “For what was done to your village.”

“I thought you were no friend to the Fey?” Pym said.

“No, but I’m no friend to the Church either,” the Red Spear said. “And anyone who wrongs one of my crew wrongs me.”

Pym beamed at her. And now there were those horrid stomach-snakes again.

Pym finished with the bandage and told her she was free to go. The Red Spear stood and moved to the steps up to the deck, but she paused before climbing them. “Guinevere,” she found herself saying.

“What?” Pym said behind her.

Already regretting it, the Red Spear turned to look over her shoulder at her. “My name,” she said. “It’s Guinevere. But if you ever try to use it, you’ll get a spear in your gut.”

Pym just smiled, no longer bothered by her threats like she had once been. Probably because she knew by now how empty all of them were. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she said. “It’s a beautiful name. No wonder you hate it so much.”

The Red Spear raised her eyebrows. “You think I have no appreciation for beautiful things?” she said. “If that were the case, I would’ve thrown you overboard without a second thought.”

She didn’t realize what she was saying until it was too late, and she hastily clamped her mouth shut. Pym’s naturally wide eyes somehow grew even wider, a sight which would’ve been comical if the Red Spear hadn’t been so mortified.

She turned her back and stomped up to the deck before Pym could say anything, hating the heat she could feel burning on her cheeks.

* * *

“I think the captain sort of called me beautiful?” Pym said wonderingly to Dof when they next had a minute alone.

“Sort of?” Dof said. “What’s that supposed to mean? Either she did or she didn’t.”

Pym recounted the bizarre exchange, and Dof was laughing by the time she got to the end. “And then she hurried out without another word,” she said. “She seemed…embarrassed. I could _swear_ she was blushing.”

Dof guffawed even louder. “The captain, embarrassed? _Blushing?_ I didn’t think she was even _capable_ of feeling embarrassment,” he said. “Sounds like she’s got it bad for you, Minnow.”

“Of course she doesn’t, don’t be ridiculous,” Pym said, but she couldn’t stop smiling.

* * *

“I heard that you told Minnow she was beautiful earlier today,” Dof said, looking smug. “She seemed quite pleased that you think so.”

The Red Spear considered running him through then and there, but she settled for holding the knife to his neck. “Keep talking and I’ll slit your throat,” she said.

Dof looked unconcerned for his life. “Just admit that you like her. Captain,” he tacked on, as if not wanting to push his disrespect _too_ far. “I won’t tell anyone.”

The Red Spear removed her knife from his neck and stabbed it into the wooden railing of the ship instead to vent her frustration. “How can anyone stand having this…whatever this is, happen to them? It’s _shit,”_ she said. “When she smiles at me, it’s like—like there’s a pit of angry snakes slithering around in my stomach.”

“I think those are called feelings,” Dof said.

“Well, they’re insufferable!”

* * *

Theoretically Pym should enjoy raids, as they were the only times she was alone on the ship with a break from her work, but she always spent the whole time tense, wondering who would make it back from this one and who wouldn’t. She’d already seen far too much death in her young life, and the longer she spent with the raiders, the more they felt like family. The more it hurt when she lost one of them.

Her musings were interrupted by the sight of the raiders on the horizon, returning to the ship. Pym took a breath, steeled herself, and went belowdecks to prepare for work.

They arrived within minutes; she could hear them clomping around above her and calling to each other. But they weren’t as rowdy as usual and there was a definite edge of urgency to their tones. Pym knew what that meant: someone had been gravely wounded.

So she was prepared for that, but she wasn’t prepared for the sight of Dof and Isma carrying the Red Spear’s prone form down the steps and heaving her up on Pym’s table. “Guinevere!” Pym gasped, the name slipping out unintentionally.

The Red Spear just groaned rather than chewing Pym out for using that name, and that scared Pym almost more than the fact that her side was a mess of blood. Pym immediately went to work, cutting her shirt open to expose the wound and grabbing cloths to stem the bloodflow.

“I know you wanted an excuse to see Pym, Captain, but this seems a little extreme,” Dof said, fear in his voice.

“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” the Red Spear said faintly, with none of her usual fire.

But Pym barely registered the exchange, too busy wiping the wound clean to see how bad it was. “Everyone out,” she ordered. “You’re crowding me.”

Dof and Isma obediently retreated; Pym vaguely heard worried voices abovedecks asking them about their captain’s state. She winced when she finally got a good look at the wound, which was very deep and still bleeding heavily. The sword, or whatever weapon it had been, didn’t seem to have hit any internal organs, which was a small mercy, but with how much blood the Red Spear had already lost…

“So? Am I dying?” the Red Spear asked, her voice thin and frail.

“Not on my watch,” Pym said firmly, threading her needle. “Never lost a patient, remember? I’m not letting you ruin that record.”

The Red Spear let out a weak huff of laughter. “You were…full of shit that day,” she said, like every word was costing her. “It’s why…why I liked you…so much.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Pym said as she finished the first stitch. The Red Spear was worryingly quiet in the face of the pain. “I’d feel better if you were cursing me out right now.”

“Don’t feel like it,” the Red Spear replied. “Like it better…when you smile.”

“Oh, now you’re really scaring me,” Pym muttered, earning another wheeze-chuckle.

She kept stitching, and the Red Spear’s only reaction was a slight grimace. “Being stitched up…by a pretty Fey…” she mused. “Not the worst…way to go.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Captain. Captain?”

But the Red Spear’s eyes had fluttered shut. Pym took a steadying breath, trying not to panic, and checked her pulse, exhaling in relief when she felt it still beating. It wasn’t too late. Once Pym had stitched her up fully and applied the proper herbs and given her a few hours’ rest, she’d be just fine. Back on her feet barking orders at everyone in no time.

“Don’t you dare ruin my record,” she said, and kept working.

* * *

The Red Spear woke up feeling groggy and sore, her side aching. She groaned softly and cracked an eye open, and she was startled to see that she was in her own cabin. How had she gotten there? Last she remembered, she’d been on the healing table…

She was even more surprised when her vision swam further into focus and she saw Pym sitting on the floor next to her bunk. Her back was against the wall and her legs stretched out in front of her, her head drooping down towards her shoulder as she dozed.

The Red Spear cleared her throat and tried to make her voice work. “Healer,” she said. No response. She spoke louder. “Pym!”

Pym jerked awake. “Huh? What’s happening?” she said, rubbing her eyes. They widened when they fell on the Red Spear. “Captain! You’re alive!”

“The fact that you’re surprised about that tells you how useless you are at your job,” the Red Spear said.

“You’re alive and insulting me!” Pym said, looking positively delighted, and she got up on her knees to throw her arms around the Red Spear.

“Ow! Get off, you shit, that hurts!”

“Sorry!” Pym let go of her, still beaming. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I was stabbed in the gut by a Paladin bastard and then poorly stitched up by an incompetent healer,” the Red Spear said, but she felt the corners of her own mouth fighting to twitch upwards too. “What were you waiting around here with me and shirking your duties for?”

“No one else needed tending to, so they were able to spare me for the night,” Pym said. “I wanted to stay and keep an eye on you.”

“For the night? How long have I been out?”

“I don’t know…a few hours.”

“You sat on that floor for _hours_ to wait and see if I’d be all right?” the Red Spear said incredulously, the stomach-snakes back again and more energetic than ever.

Pym flushed, the effect combining with her hair color to make it look like her entire head was on fire. “You’re my patient. I was only doing my job,” she said modestly. Then, softly and much more tenderly, she added, “And I was worried about you. When they first brought you in, it was…well, not the _most_ afraid I’ve ever been, because I’ve been through some shit the past couple months, let me tell you. But it was up there.”

Pym had worried about her. She cared for her. The Red Spear finally allowed a smile to break out fully on her face. “Thank you,” she said without a hint of sarcasm. “For saving me. I guess you’re a decent healer after all.”

Pym laughed. “And thank _you,_ for giving me a new home,” she said.

She leaned in closer, reaching up to rest her hand on the Red Spear’s cheek. They stayed like that for a moment, foreheads pressed together and noses touching. “Do you really think I’m pretty?” Pym asked.

“What?”

“Earlier, you said that being stitched up by a pretty Fey wasn’t the worst way to go.”

The Red Spear grimaced in embarrassment. “I have no memory of that,” she insisted, truthfully. “You must’ve been hearing things.”

“And Dof said that you’ve been looking for excuses to see me,” Pym continued.

That, she did remember. “Bastard,” she muttered.

“So, do you…like me?” Pym said, looking hopeful.

“Are we twelve?”

“Just answer the question.”

The stomach-snakes—feelings—were still wriggling, but now they felt pleasant rather than irritating. “Since when are you the one who gives orders around here?” the Red Spear asked, and she leaned in another half inch and kissed her.

She could feel Pym smiling, and then she started kissing her back. The Red Spear closed her eyes and savored the feeling of Pym’s soft, full lips against hers, tilting her head for a better angle and—

“Ouch!” Pym said, pulling away and putting a hand to her cheek. Her other hand gestured vaguely at the Red Spear’s face. “Even your jewelry’s a weapon, gods, can you take off that nose thing?”

“No, and it’s not _jewelry,”_ the Red Spear said, affronted.

“You can’t take it off or you won’t take it off?”

“Won’t. But maybe I’d be willing to tonight,” the Red Spear said, cocking a suggestive eyebrow.

But Pym shook her head. “Oh no, you will _not_ be exerting yourself for at _least_ a week, probably longer,” she said sternly. “No physical activity whatsoever.”

“But—”

“But nothing, unless you want all those stitches to pop out and make you bleed to death.”

The Red Spear lifted the shoulder of her uninjured side in a shrug. “I’d happily die for a good fuck,” she said, pulling Pym in for another kiss as Pym laughed into her mouth.

Several minutes later, they were interrupted by the door opening. “Minnow, any updates on—oh, sorry.” The Red Spear recognized Dof’s voice, and she looked over Pym’s head to see him in the doorway barely suppressing laughter. “Looks like you’re feeling better, Captain.”

“Get out,” the Red Spear said, and he did so, still snickering. Thinking she’d better get out there before Dof went blabbing to the entire crew, she pushed herself up onto her elbows and tried to sit up, then hissed as the movement made the pain in her side flare up.

“What did I tell you? No moving,” Pym scolded, gently nudging her to lie back down.

“I can’t just lie here uselessly for days, the crew—”

“—will be better served by you resting and getting well again.”

“Still—”

“Guinevere,” Pym said, and hearing her name, her true name, fall from Pym’s lips effectively melted the last of the Red Spear’s stubbornness.

Pym seemed to take her sudden silence as displeasure. “Would you prefer me not to call you that?” she asked, looking anxious. “I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

The Red Spear shook her head. She pretended to hate the name, but really it just made her feel sad. Made her miss the old life that had been taken from her when she was cast out and exiled. It was easier to bury Guinevere underneath the façade of the Red Spear, easier to think of herself as a weapon of vengeance than as a living, breathing person with a past and a heart and a lost home.

But when Pym called her Guinevere, it didn’t remind her of painful memories. It reminded her of her own humanity. It made her feel like Pym _saw_ her.

“I don’t mind it,” she said. “But only when no one else is around. In front of the others, I’m still your captain.”

“Of course. Guinevere,” Pym said, smiling at her.

Guinevere smiled back. “Pym.”


End file.
